Trump DOJ asserts presidential privilege over drug boat drone strikes memo

MANHATTAN (CN) —  The Department of Justice told a New York federal judge Wednesday morning that an executive communications privilege exemption shields an Office of League Counsel memo about drone strikes on suspected drug cartel boats from public disclosure.

The American Civil Liberties Union, along with the Center for Constitutional Rights, filed a Freedom of Information Act complaint in December 2025 seeking to order production of the memo they say concerns the U.S. military’s claimed authority to carry out lethal strikes on civilians in boats the U.S. government claims are shuttling drugs for Latin American cartels.

The U.S. government says the memo includes highly sensitive, classified information, which if disclosed would reveal intelligence operations, sources and methods.

Arguing for summary judgment, the Department of Justice said that presidential communications privilege covers the OLC document in its entirety and therefore the judge should not require a private “in camera” review of the classified memorandum to parse out which parts should or should not be made public.

“Wouldn’t that be true of any OLC memo,” U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer asked. “Is it the government’s position that any presidential communications privilege cannot be waived?"

The Department of Justice additionally argues that the factual material recounted in the document was provided to OLC by President Donald Trump in confidence for the purpose of seeking legal advice, and consequently is also protected by the attorney-client privilege.

But ACLU attorney Jeffrey Stein argued such privilege was waived when the OLC memo was disseminated “beyond the narrow parameters” of the president and his senior advisers.

The ACLU argues its own motion for summary judgment numerous disclosures establish that OLC memo has since been adopted as Department of Defense’s effective law and policy, or “working law," and cannot be cannot be shielded from public scrutiny.

Stein said the most recent of such lethal drone strikes in the Caribbean sea as part of Operation Southern Spear, “on the basis of secret law,” occurred just a couple days ago, bringing the number of people who have been killed in boat strikes by the U.S. military to more than 210 people.

“That sort of secret law has no place in a democratic society,” he said.

Stein later added that the government’s assertions of executive privilege in this FOIA case are “contrary to the foundational presidential communications privileges case.”

“The whole purpose is eliminate secret laws,” he said.

Engelmayer, a Barack Obama appointee, did not immediately rule from the bench.

Trump has also justified the boat strikes by proclaiming criminal drug trafficking organizations to be unlawful combatants, relying on the same legal authority used by President George W. Bush’s administration for the war on terrorism.

In late October, Trump clarified the U.S. strategy.

“I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK? We’re going to kill them, you know? They’re going to be like, dead,” Trump said at a White House event.

The strikes and an unusually large U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean Sea and the waters off Venezuela, including the deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, have raised speculation that the administration may attempt to topple Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who faces charges of narcoterrorism in the U.S.

The United Kingdom — one of the United States’ closest allies — paused intelligence flows for counternarcotics missions after the U.S. began using airstrikes to sink small vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, over concerns over legality and complicity for the strikes.

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